1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an ignition coil, particularly to an ignition coil with an improved recycle rate.
2. Description of the Related Art
The desirability of efficiently recovering and reusing resources, i.e., recycling, has gained wide recognition in many fields. This is also true in the field of ignition coils used in internal combustion engines. Such ignition coils are required to have high resistance to vibration, moisture, heat and the like. Their coil units are therefore usually fixed by charging a thermosetting resin (e.g. an epoxy resin) into a coil case holding the coil unit to embed the coil unit in the resin. This fixing of the coil unit by embedding it in resin makes conventional ignition coils hard to disassemble at the time of disposal. They are simply disposed of, without any disassembly and, therefore, are low in recycle rate.
An object of this invention is to overcome this problem by providing an ignition coil improved in recycle rate and thus enabling efficient recovery and reuse of resources.
In order to achieve the object, there is provided, in a first aspect of the invention, an ignition coil having a core, a coil unit composed of a primary coil and a secondary coil disposed around the core and a coil case housing the core and the coil unit, the core being openable at one end such that the coil unit is detachable from the core, wherein the primary coil and the secondary coil of the coil unit are fabricated of self-welding wire and fixed in the coil case by an elastic material.
In a second aspect of the invention, there is provided an ignition coil having a coil unit composed of a primary coil with a terminal and a secondary coil, an ignition control circuit unit with a lead to be connected to the terminal of the primary coil and a coil case housing the coil unit and the ignition control circuit unit, wherein the terminal of the primary coil and the lead of the ignition control circuit unit are joined together by fusion and the joint is partially molded.